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US No Longer Technology King
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that according to a recent report from the World Economic Forum the US has lost the leading spot for technology innovation. The new reigning champ is now apparently Denmark with other Nordic neighbors Sweden, Finland and Norway all claiming top spots as well. "Countries were judged on technological advancements in general business, the infrastructure available and the extent to which government policy creates a framework necessary for economic development and increased competitiveness."
Actually, according to the article, "A deterioration of the political and regulatory environment in the US prompted the fall." However, "Despite losing its top position, the US still maintained a strong focus on innovation, driven by one of the world's best tertiary education systems and its high degree of co-operation with industry."
Don't mod me informative; it is just copy-and-paste magic for people as lazy as the parent poster.
Having been the Europe many times, I've often been asked by friends and colleagues why we in the US don't have high speed trains everywhere. Well, considering that - if we used the fastest TVGs and ICEs they have in the EU - it would still take about 7 hours to take a train from Seattle (where I live) to San Francisco - the nearest big city (assuming 300 KPH and slowing down for the occasional towns/crossings). Or 30 hours from Seattle to Miami, at the same average speed.
Compare that to under 2 hours for Paris to Brussels. It's just a different scale over here. And that makes telecom also difficult. Distances between big population centers would cover multiple EU countries. It takes a lot of time and a lot of money to pull more fiber from Seattle to Chicago, or Houston to Los Angeles... It's not a small 150-100 kilometer run of fiber; it's literally hundreds - if not thousands - of kilometers to cover.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I was a little surprised about your 7 hour time quote from Seattle to San Francisco, so I did some fact checking:
Google maps says that the distance between the two cities is 808 miles, or 12 hours 40 mins by car. Google converts those 808 miles into kilometers: 808 miles = 1 300.34995 kilometers.
The time it takes to travel 1300 kilometers at 300km/hour: 4.33 hours. So you were off by a substantial amount of time - 2 hours and 20 minutes or so.
High speed trains will become more popular when gas prices go up. That will affect both car travel and airplane travel. Gas prices are already high in Europe for car travel, and trains are a lot more comfortable that planes, so that's probably why they are more popular there. Particularly when you take into account all the security checkpoints they force you through at airports these days, it's a royal pain to fly.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.